Brand new to sabersmithing... need help.

[Soulkeeper7700]

hey everyone, im AJ and im new to sabersmithing. ive been trying to find all the topics i need help with on the forum for a little over a month now and im still having some trouble. first off, how is the sink tube supposed to be used... is it a sort of inner tube that holds all the guts and batteries and then fits snugly inside of the outer tube? and if i use that, i have to get a MHS emitter and a MHS to sink tube adapter to hold the blade?
like i said i am very new.... but i got a darth maul saber staff converted to lux III led by Ultra Sabers last year and i thought it was the coolest thing... until i seen all the custom stuff people were building.. and now mine is no longer impressing. i have seen some really beautiful work by some of you and i want to jump in the mix and have some fun. this is actually a sort of art in my point of view. anyways thanks for taking the time to help out, and im sorry if what i asked has been answered a million times, but i did browse around to try to piece it together myself.. thanks to all.

[TimeRender]

I don't mean to sound rude, but if you've been lurking for a month you ought to know by now how the MHS works. No, the sinktube is not a necessary part at all. Sink tubes fit over MHS parts, so if you're skilled with a dremel you can cut one into a nice sleeve. It can also be used instead of MHS pieces if you attach a sink tube/MHS adapter at each end. Go look in the store and you will better understand. Now I feel obligated to tell you what I know everyone else is thinking. 1st, learn to use the search feature on the forums, because I can already tell that you're going to have a lot more questions and that they have all already been answered. 2nd, scroll down near the bottom of the forum and read ALL of the posts in the tutorial section. It is there for a reason and it will be able to guide you through saber construction step by step. Third, welcome to TCSS.

[Ghostbat]

To play devils advocate:

One of the things that isn't entirely obvious when you are going through this forum for the first time is the sink-tube and the role of the adapters. I lurked for quite some time before I thought I knew the answer and it wasn't really confirmed until I took an MHS piece to the hardware store and had both it and a sink tube in my hand at the same time.

The search is sometimes helpful, but try searching for sink tube adapter and you get 908 results very few of which are in any way relevant. The best tool in this case are the pictures in the store. Many items have more than one picture showing in a bit more detail how the piece is actually used but when you are first finding this place you go into a kind of ferret shock with all the cool stuff and a detail like that may not be noticed for some time :)

Welcome Soulkeeper, just keep reading and poking and asking questions and it will all come together!

[Angelus Lupus]

ferret shock?
You must be a Sluggy fan; me too.

[TimeRender]

One of the things that isn't entirely obvious when you are going through this forum for the first time is the sink-tube and the role of the adapters. I lurked for quite some time before I thought I knew the answer and it wasn't really confirmed until I took an MHS piece to the hardware store and had both it and a sink tube in my hand at the same time.

That's true, which is why I referred him back to the store. It may not be obvious exactly how the tube adapter and MHS parts work together, but it should be pretty obvious just by looking at pictures of the parts that the sinktube doesn't go INSIDE the MHS, especially if someone reads the item descriptions in the store. Again, I'm not trying to pick on him, but others here will get quite nasty if he makes it a habit of asking questions that are both obvious and that have been asked already. A single day of lurking ought to be enough to learn all but the most obscure details of saber building if it is time well spent. To be here for a month and not understand what a sinktube is for spells trouble down the line for this new saber builder.

[Soulkeeper7700]

actually, i figured out alot of how the parts are supposed to be put together just by looking at them.. i did try the search, and i got over a thousand results, and went through a couple hundred of them and was still unsure. the biggest thing that was confusing me is, why would you put the hilt system pieces, which are machined to some nice designs, inside a plain chrome tube and cover them? which is why i thought that maybe they were similar to how my darth maul saber staff was built... the outer tube is all nice and has some cool designs, while all the guts and electronics are put together with a plastic tube that fits snuggly inside the outer tube... i say again, i do apologize for asking some questions that were answered already.. but forums are sometimes just too damn big and too vast to get a straight up answer. Also, im a very hands on person, so im sure i would better understand how to work with the parts if i just bought some. but on the other hand, who wants to spend 50 or 60 bucks on a few parts that im not even sure i can use. so im sorry i irritated some of you. but i do appreciate the knowledge that many of you possess that i just dont..... and i just recently got myself a dremel 300 and a 200 piece accessory kit to mess with. a very cool tool and i cant wait to put it to good use. thanks again guys... TCSS is awesome!

[Ghostbat]

ferret shock?
You must be a Sluggy fan; me too.

Is it not nifty?

the biggest thing that was confusing me is, why would you put the hilt system pieces, which are machined to some nice designs, inside a plain chrome tube and cover them?

The two main ways a sink tube is used is as a replacement for most of the nice machined hilt pieces (IE as the base part of the saber) or as a cover. Typically if it is used as a cover it is cut in various ways to show the nice parts beneath.

Here is a good example of using the sink tobe as a major element: http://thecustomsabershop.com/forum/...pic.php?t=2741 or http://thecustomsabershop.com/forum/...pic.php?t=3725

Here is a great example of a decorative shroud http://thecustomsabershop.com/forum/...pic.php?t=2719

[Soulkeeper7700]

Ghostbat, thank you so much for the pictures. they were very helpful. i now see the reason you would use sink tube as an outer covering... i really liked that black and gold (or brass for the technical guys out there) saber alot and i would really like to make something in that direction. thanks so much for the help all

[vortextwist]

I must say the search feature is not the best. Looking through the gallery will give you some ideas of what people in the past have done with their parts.

[TheCheeker]

in the end what we're looking for is a good way to add some detail to our designs to make them unique and a lot of people find the mhs pieces to be boring by themselves. listen to vortex and take a trip to the mhs section of the gallery. it won't take long to realize just how much a sink tube overlay or some o-rings or rubber grip material can improve the look of an otherwise bland saber.